There is perhaps no group of gamers more mistreated than American Mother fans.

While Japanese gamers have gotten all three games in the surreal RPG series, all we've gotten is Earthbound, a Super Nintendo localization of Mother 2. Americans didn't get Mother on NES, Mother 3 on Game Boy Advance, or any of the subsequent ports and re-releases—and Nintendo won't say why.

Rubbing salt on our Mr. Saturn-sized wounds, last week Nintendo announced a release of Mother 2 for the Wii U's Virtual Console... in Japan. Nowhere else. (I asked a Nintendo rep if it will ever come here. The response: "We have nothing to announce about this game at this time.")